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The Biggest Loser is a rather popular TV show, all about rather obese people trying to lose weight. Are its trainers really qualified to assist the participants?

Lose All You Can!

I know at least some of you have watched the show. If not, it basically is about a bunch of very overweight people being pushed into losing as much weight as they can in x amount of time. The winner is the one who lost the most and for his efforts he receives a cash prize.

No Warranties

The ways by which these people are made to lose weight are, shall we say, questionable, as they involve severe caloric restriction and up to six hours of physical exercise per day – done by individuals who until then probably couldn’t tell a jogging from a hiking shoe.

One contestant supplied the New York Times with the release form participants have to sign to take part in the show. According to the Times this release says:

No warranty, representation or guarantee has been made as to the qualifications or credentials of the medical professionals who examine me or perform any procedures on me in connection with my participation in the series, or their ability to diagnose medical conditions that may affect my fitness to participate in the series.

Keep this in mind when now in comes James Fell, a Canadian fitness writer, who strikes me as a bit pompous, but whose fitness column at AOL to my eye contains mostly sensible and good advice. Fell is also well-respected in the fitness sphere and his credentials are solid.

No Qualifications?

And what did he do? He posted an article about the qualifications, or lack thereof, of one of the show’s fitness coaches, Jillian Michaels. In an article for the Los Angeles Times he highlighted this with the help of Michaels’ new kettlebell training DVD and wrote:

(…) she’s an actress playing the role of fitness trainer on TV and in a line of popular DVDs.

Is Fell just jealous? Well, Michaels’ personal website mentions that she received two personal training certificates in 1993 and nothing ever since. She is also using her fame to promote questionable diet, “detox” and “cleansing” products – which got her four lawsuits just this year. And she sells those various fitness DVDs that Fell thinks she better shouldn’t do, but his sentiments are shared by qualified fitness instructors. Fell quotes a good number of them in his article and one of Michaels’ performances on the show already two years ago prompted a professional spinning teacher to write her an open letter that said:

What you did with your participants on the Biggest Loser last night was horrendous and very sad. It showed great disrespect for your participants, for the Spinning program, and for indoor cycling in general. You showed rampant disregard for safety, for biomechanics, for understanding of training principles, and for concern for your participants. It shows that you know nothing about riding a bike, either.

Now how does I-got-sued-four-times-just-this-year-Michaels react after reading Fell’s piece? She sues him for defamation.

10 Comments

I personally have a problem with the mentality they have. Aside from the fact that its unhealthy to lose weight as fast as they do, they seem to focus little to at all on body composition and simply focus on how much they can make the scale drop in the amount of time they have and coming from someone who first made that mistake, for anyone trying to lose weight and be healthy, its a big mistake to make especially if they were like me and had a large amount of weight to lose.

I hate seeing people fall into the trap of that mindset and do my best to tell others when the opportunity comes up, and especially if they say they’re trying to lose weight themselves, that its a lot more than just trying to make a number on a scale go down.

I’m not even going to get started with the problems I also have with them such as working out 6 hours a day, its just not realistic and impossible to maintain in a normal life….

Yes, my sentiments exactly; it’s all for show, quite literally. From the NYT article: “‘I’m waiting for the first person to have a heart attack,’ said Dr. Charles Burant, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Health System director of the Michigan Metabolomics and Obesity Center. ‘I have had some patients who want to do the same thing, and I counsel them against it,’ Dr. Burant said. ‘I think the show is so exploitative. They are taking poor people who have severe weight problems whose real focus is trying to win the quarter-million dollars.’”

It may produce results, but you’re right, how they go about getting those results is wrong on so many levels.

Take it from someone whose lived it, albeit not to the extreme that they do it, losing weight at the rate that they do simply isn’t healthy and not maintainable to the average person.

I managed to lose roughly 160 lbs in a little over a year and did it pretty quickly. I lost the weight but ended up with some loose skin that I probably could have avoided if i had been smarter about it and also managed to lose a good amount of muscle in the process.

Now although I managed to drop 160 lbs in a year, I believe the fastest they’ve had someone drop 100 lbs on the show is 7 weeks and the most weight lost by a contestant in a week is 34 lbs! Now these people are massively overweight but even then, losing that much weight that quickly has to be horribly unhealthy in so many ways.

I’m all for people wanting to feel better through exercise and weight loss but the show presents and unrealistic and in my opinion, very unhealthy view on how to go about it.

I’m fortunate in that I’ve never had to struggle with my weight; however, I have seen these reality TV shows, and I think it is pretty clear that Michaels is a television personality and not a bonified personal trainer or therapist. Her methods are questionable, often unhealthy, and more often than not humiliating to her clients.

I hope she doesn’t win that battle against Fell. But you know what? She probably will. (Sigh.)

Wow to the fact someone lost 100lbs in a month & a half- I’m sure the running and jumping they did was not good on the joints but I’m sure it outweights (no pun intended) being obese. Those were intense workouts for being that heavy-I thought most of them were going to have a heart attack.

I can’t stand the business she made after the success of that show >:( Must go do a rage video on youtube*

*Evil how brave are you to do that? Call out Jillian Michaels xD That is a sure way to make your blog popular